A Little Mo' Action
by otherhawk
Summary: In the midst of a plan with ulterior motives, Danny and Rusty might just get around to remembering they're supposed to be stealing something.


**Disclaimer: I don't own anything to do with O11**

**A/N: For InSilva. Over a month late, but that is only because, as she just reminded me, I am a horrible friend and a terrible person.**

* * *

It was a slow week and Rusty was currently sprawled on the sofa with a stack of paper, expending all his efforts into trying to make a paper plane fly across the room and wedge itself in the crack in the chimney. So far he'd had twenty-three unsuccessful attempts, and consequently the living room was littered with twenty-three crashed paper planes.

Danny had gone out for coffee and breakfast, but that had been a few hours ago. Rusty couldn't quite decide whether he was working his way up to being worried or annoyed, when the door opened and Danny walked in, and Rusty could hear the smugness and the anticipation just in the sound of his footsteps.

"What?" he asked, without looking up. "And did you bring back breakfast?"

"Got something better than breakfast," Danny told him.

"Uh huh." He pursed his lips. "Did something better than breakfast _include _breakfast?"

With a much-put-upon sigh, Danny dropped a paper bag on top of him. "Here," he said grumpily.

Rusty pulled out a blueberry Danish happily. "Alright," he said, through a mouthful of pastry. "What's going on?"

In answer, Danny dropped a leaflet on top of him. He looked down at it. _North American Anthropological News Digest. _He raised an eyebrow. "You thought this was better than breakfast?"

"Turn to page three," Danny instructed.

Obligingly, he did so and was immediately confronted with a grainy picture of a small golden statue, with an accompanying announcement to the effect that the Hotel Paradiso, Cancun, was hosting an exhibition of Peruvian artefacts for the next six months. "Paradiso isn't Spanish," he commented.

Danny leant on the back of the sofa above him. "That's what you're taking away from this?"

He shrugged. "Just saying. That's - "

" - Niall Williams' statue," Danny confirmed. "Yep. It's going to be there."

"Uh huh." He tilted his head back and looked straight up at Danny, his pastry long forgotten. "You remember what happened last time we went after it?"

"This is different," Danny said confidently. "That was on his estate. This is a hotel. It'll be easier."

"He got a good look at both of us," Rusty reminded him. "We'd need a hell of a good way in."

Danny's face broke into a wide, bright grin. "That's the good part," he said, and he dropped a second leaflet down on Rusty's face.

"_The Fifth Annual Moustache Convention to be held at the Hotel Paradiso, Cancun,'" _he read aloud. He looked back up at Danny, staring hard. "So. You want to steal Niall Williams' statue, or you want to grow a moustache?"

Danny gave his best impression of offended."Are you suggesting I might have an ulterior motive?

He grinned. "Your ulterior motives have ulterior motives," he said, absent-mindedly turning the anthropology newsletter into a paper plane and sending it flying across the room. "You really want to spend that much time on this thing?"

Danny shrugged. "How much time could it take?"

"To grow a good moustache?" Honestly, he wasn't sure. He'd never grown one. "Got to be a couple of months."

"Right..." Danny looked amused. "You know we can do other things at the same time, right? Growing a moustache is not a full time activity."

"Uh uh." He shook his head firmly. "There's the whole thing where it's not stubble and it's not a proper moustache. And if you think I'm leaving the apartment looking like that, you got another think coming."

Danny laughed. "Diva," he declared. "We could always just wear false moustaches you know."

He stared. "You really think that the sort of people who participate in moustache conventions can't tell the difference?"

"Good point," Danny conceded. "What the hell happens at a moustache convention anyway?"

"Beats me," he said with a shrug. "Guess we'll find out." The moustache leaflet went flying across the room and wedged itself in the chimney. Oh, that had to be a good sign.

* * *

The Hotel Paradiso was massive and luxurious, and currently boasted more men with moustaches than a seventies porn film. Actually, Rusty wasn't entirely convinced that a porn film wasn't about to break out. The last time he'd seen this many burly, moustachioed men had been the Village People Night in the Blue Circle Club, and that had been enough to make Livingston blush for the rest of the night.

As they walked casually towards the check in desk, Danny's hand crept up to his face and he started stroking it thoughtfully, while carefully examining the other moustaches on display.

"Stop that," Rusty said out of the corner of his mouth. "You'll go blind."

Danny dropped his hand to his side and glanced at him. "See, if you'd said I'd get hairy palms, I might have believed you,"

"Hi there," Rusty said in Spanish to the receptionist, a bright smile on his face. "Burt Selleck and Tom Reynolds. We're here for the convention – we have a reservation." He slid over a credit card.

"Of course," she nodded, taking it, and they leaned against the desk while she sorted out the keys and paperwork.

"Oh, that's impressive," Danny commented in a low voice, as a short man with a fiercely-pointed handlebar moustache walked past. "You think he uses wax?"

"Hairspray and straighteners," Rusty said with confidence.

Danny grinned. "Now _that _could make you go blind."

Rusty looked at him. "How bad are you at aiming hairspray?"

"_I've_ never tried," Danny said with dignity.

"Here you go, sir," the receptionist broke in, passing him the key with a smile.

"Thank you," Rusty said easily, scrawling his favourite unreadable signature on all the paperwork and pocketing the credit card. It was relatively real, for once. The last thing they wanted was to be thrown out of the hotel before they were done.

"And here is your convention packs," the receptionist added, passing over a couple of plastic wallets. "There's a meet and greet in an hour's time in the Oasis Lounge. Complimentary drinks and refreshments will be available."

"With straws, so that nothing gets on the moustaches," Rusty remarked sourly as they walked towards the elevators.

"You can't drink coffee through a straw," Danny said easily. "It would melt."

"The coffee or the moustache?" Rusty asked with interest, pausing to call the elevator. "Fuck, this thing itches," he complained, once they were in the elevator, scratching irritatedly at his chin.

Danny glanced at him. "I don't know why you grew the beard as well."

Because when he'd started growing it in, his hair had been too fair for it to stand out, and he'd figured more was better.

Danny grinned. "You could have dyed it," he suggested.

With a look, he told Danny that he'd interfered more than enough with Rusty's appearance lately.

"It's a good look on you," Danny said insincerely. Currently, he was completely convinced that his new moustache made him the spitting image of Clark Gable. Rusty had tried to go for a Zorro look, and that meant as well as the moustache he needed the stubble and the strip of beard. Point was, neither of them had anything as spectacular as some of the people they'd seen downstairs.

"Think it'll be enough to blend in?" he asked.

Danny shrugged. "Well, I don't think either of us is going to be winning the grand prize. But it should do for the moment."

They walked into the room and found that the minibar had been chained up.

Huh.

"You sure you didn't give them your real name?" Danny wondered.

He sighed. "So. Meet and greet, and then you take the news station and I'll get the exhibition?"

Danny nodded. "News station and - "

" - whiskey," he agreed. "And chocolate."

* * *

If he'd thought there were a lot of moustachioed men in the lobby, that was nothing compared to the meet and greet. Place was packed with wall to wall bristles. Probably didn't exactly help that there was a free bar.

Danny had been cornered early by a huge man with wild eyes and a salt and pepper moustache that reached down to his shoulders, who seemed intent on telling Danny the exact blend of secret herbs and spices that would make a moustache really flourish. Rusty had a feeling it was the same recipe as new coke. What's more, the explanation was in rapid-fire Spanish, and Rusty knew beyond all shadow of a doubt that Danny was only getting one word in every three. Still, this had been Danny's idea, so despite the desperate looks Rusty had absolutely no qualms about wandering off in search of refreshments. After all, the point of this little exercise was to be noted and noticed as convention-goers. And right now, looked like half the room was busy giving Danny surreptitious sympathetic looks. Mission accomplished, he'd say, and a once he'd found a can of coke and a selection of mini cakes, he spent the time mingling, trying to meet as many people as possible.

He wound up talking to Howard, a small man with a Freddy Mercury moustache who seemed just a little bit fixated on Rusty's hair.

"I love blond moustaches," he gushed. "And yours is wonderfully fair. Can I...can I touch it?"

"No," he said, before he'd even had a chance to think about it.

Howard's face fell immediately. "Oh, of course. Sorry. I should have known better than to ask."

Well, yes, in Rusty's opinion. But that wasn't exactly the diplomatic thing to say. Besides. He'd been planning on bringing a distraction upstairs, and looked like he might just have found a good one. "Never mind," he said with a disarming smile. "Say, I've just about had enough of this party. Fancy going exploring?"

"Oh! Sure!" Howard said enthusiastically.

He was slightly less enthusiastic when Rusty rounded up a few more of the men he'd been talking to, seeking out the loudest and the most outgoing, and herded them all upstairs.

They wound up in the exhibition space, and he was careful not to give more than a passing glance in the direction of the gold statue. They'd already done the surveillance last week, so the five security guards were no more a surprise than the heavy-duty doors that would slam shut in the event of anything approaching an incident. All that had to be bypassed. But first of all...

He grinned. Just as he'd hoped, one of the guards had a thick, bristling moustache. "Look at him," he said cheerfully. "We should invite him downstairs when he gets off work."

His distraction took up the bait beautifully, swarming across the floor and surrounding the guard, and soon the other guards were looking over with worried expressions at the ruckus, Howard's voice rising above It all: "Can I touch it?"

And that only left the security cameras sweeping the room, and there was no blind spot on the idol, of course, but here, in this insignificant corner, there was a grand total of two seconds, and that was time enough for him to kneel by the grate that hid the air duct and quickly shove the magnetic clamp and line through. He gritted his teeth at the sound of the end of the line tumbling down. Louder than he'd like, but no one else seemed to hear, and as he stood up, it seemed that no one had noticed a thing, and Howard was being escorted firmly towards the door.

So far so good.

* * *

Danny reappeared some time around late afternoon, and by that time the free bar had shut and the convention goers had dispersed into talks and panels and forums, and Rusty had stolen away to the hotel bar, which might cost money but had the distinct advantage of having less facial hair. Beside him, of course. He rubbed at his mouth gloomily and grimaced as the moustache itched against his fingers..

"Thought you said you'd go blind doing that," Danny said lightly, dropping onto the bar stool beside him.

"Might be an improvement," he considered. "Least I wouldn't have to look at it anymore."

Danny grinned, signalling the bartender for a whisky. "So stop staring at yourself in the mirror already," he said with a distinct lack of sympathy.

Sighing, Rusty slumped down onto the bar.

"Did you - " Danny began.

" - yup," he nodded into his hands. "No problem. Everything was where it should be, and the line's secured for tomorrow. You?"

"Uh huh," Danny confirmed brightly, but there was something in his voice...

Rusty raised his head and looked at him suspiciously. "What?"

Danny sighed gloomily. "Miranda charged me full price," he announced.

Huh. His eyebrows shot up. That was unexpected. "She was very receptive on the phone," he remarked.

"Yes," Danny agreed sullenly.

"And then she gets a good look at you and - "

" - _yes,_" Danny said through gritted teeth.

He started to grin. "Think it was the moustache?"

The glare said it all.

Suddenly in a better mood, Rusty looked down at the convention program. "Okay. Dinner isn't till eight. I reckon we should go to a panel or something before then." Just to make sure they were noticed. "We've got...'Moustaches Through History' and 'Grooming and Styling Tips for the Outdoorsman'."

Danny looked distinctly unenthused by either option.

"Bet you never thought having a moustache was so much work," Rusty said lightly. "I think we should go to the history one. You're wearing three hundred dollar shoes. You don't look like an outdoorsman."

"And you do?" Danny asked in disbelief.

He ignored that bit. "Just watch out for the moustache feeler."

"The moustache feeler?" Danny looked intrigued.

"A little man with a Freddy Mercury moustache named Howard," Rusty explained.

"A Freddy Mercury moustache named Howard?" Danny mulled that over for along moment. "Huh. What's the man called?"

* * *

The panel was about as dull as Rusty had been expecting. He had no doubt that there was plenty of stuff in the stories of Wyatt Earp, Theodore Roosevelt and Pancho Villa that could be interesting – people had made movies about them, after all – but he was pretty sure their choice of moustaches hadn't affected their lives as much as the speaker wanted them to believe. And apparently, no matter how impressive the bristles, mentioning Stalin was a no-go area. There had been a moment there when the crowd had turned nasty, and he'd been sure they were going to be asked to leave.

But they'd hung on, and then there'd been dinner with a speech by the president of the Moustache Federation which had been almost unbelievably boring – he wasn't quite sure what the anecdote about the eleven billy goats and the hailstorms was supposed to be about, or how it was supposed to relate to moustaches, but in the end, he'd decided he probably didn't care.

Food had been good though. There'd been chocolate and strawberry ganache. In Rusty's opinion, that might just make it all worth it. And, of course, there had also been a never-ending supply of wine, just to move things along and, probably, ensure that no one else noticed that afterwards, unlike this afternoon, the bar _wasn't _free. Far as he could tell, it was working. The bar was once again packed with moustache-wearers, and this time they were all drunk.

Of course, they rarely had a problem paying for their drinks. Especially since Danny had lifted the wallet of salt-and-pepper moustache this morning.

"I'm sure it wasn't the moustache," Danny told him gloomily, as he drank down his whisky. "And even if it was, all that means is Miranda doesn't like moustaches. It has nothing to do with _my _moustache." _It makes me look like Clark Gable. _The thought passed unspoken.

"Uh huh." Rusty grinned widely. "I'm not so sure. Maybe you're like a reverse-Samson."

Danny looked at him. "Samson?"

"And Delilah," Rusty explained.

"Oh, I know what you meant," Danny said. "I just didn't know they'd made a movie of that."

"Funny." He gave it a second. "And they did, actually. 1949. Starred Victore Mature and Hedy Lamarr."

"Huh." Danny pursed his lips. "I'm going to go get more drinks. Stay away from the scissors, Hedy."

"It's Hedley," he said automatically. Almost immediately he lost sight of Danny at the bar, only catching a brief glimpse of him in earnest conversation with one of the drunker groups. Probably trying to convince them he looked like Clark Gable.

Honestly, the sooner they were done here, the happier Rusty would be. There had to be better ways of earning their daily bread.

"Hi there!" The voice was bright and full of energy and he looked up to see the group of drunks that Danny had been talking to standing over him. "I hear you don't believe in using treatment on your moustache?"

He blinked. "_What?_"

"Don' worry," the man assured him solemnly. "This won't hurt a bit, and afterwards you'll feel like a new man." They all nodded seriously, holding up various pots and bottles of product.

"Wait, no," he started to object, and three of them seized him and held him down while the leader carefully unscrewed the lid of the first bottle.

"Don't worry," he told Rusty carefully. "Our product is abso...absa...totally guaranteed not tested on animals."

Not exactly his problem. He didn't want it tested on _him. _In desperation, he looked past them and caught sight of Danny, standing at the front of the crowd and watching serenely.

Oh, _fantastic. _

* * *

The next morning he still smelled of strawberries, and he wasn't exactly talking to Danny. Not politely, anyway.

"Really, your moustache does look much more luxurious," Danny said unrepentantly over breakfast. "I think I can actually see all of it now."

He glanced at Danny and decided not to tell him he had cappuccino foam in his moustache. "You know," he said spitefully. "You look more like John Waters than Clark Gable anyway."

Danny didn't even have the grace to look alarmed. "You want to - "

" - yeah," he nodded with a sigh. The breakfast room was packed. Looked like the majority of the convention-goers were here. He stood up. "Anyone mind if I turn on the TV?" he asked loudly. "I want to catch last night's scores."

There was the expected general murmur of indifferent agreement. He put the TV onto the local news and sat back down as the show played.

It was three before minutes before they heard Miranda's voice right on schedule, talking over stock footage of the city. In a nice touch, the Hotel Paradiso featured prominently.

"Cancun has awoken this morning to a state of fear as reports come in of a deadly and unusually aggressive swarm of killer bees loose in the city," she announced gravely. "We are getting unconfirmed reports that the bees have already claimed three lives. Killer bees can be distinguished from normal honey bees as they are slightly larger with shorter wings. Authorities advise extreme caution and say anyone who suspects the swarm may be in their vicinity to evacuate immediately."

A murmur of fear and and unease travelled round the breakfast room, and they exchanged an imperceptible grin as the loud, worried conversations started. With the news report being repeated at ten, and the rumour mill working overtime, it was only a matter of time before everyone at the convention knew to be afraid of killer bees.

"Would be good if we could get that president guy to make some sort of announcement," Danny mused. "But we'd need to get close to him first."

The grin became fully visible. "I'm on it," he told Danny cheerfully, his fingers trailing lightly over his strawberry-scented moustache.

Danny regarded him with deep suspicion.

* * *

The morning was taken up with various competitions. Everyone sat in the main convention room as various categories were called out and men stood on stage for their moustaches to be measured and admired as the president talked to them. Longest moustache, thickest moustache, most luxurious moustache, most bizarre moustache, moustache the judges would most like to take home,...there seemed to be far more options than Rusty could ever have expected. He figured that normally this would be one of the more popular parts of the convention, but right now there was a tense atmosphere, like everyone had something else to worry about. Their doing, he supposed, and he was just a little bit sorry about that.

"And now," the president announced in his booming voice, "We come to the Famous Moustache Competition. First of all, please come up onto the stage Frederick Rice as Lord Kitchener, Howard Samuels as Freddie Mercury, Miguel Durrand as Salvador Dali and Burt Selleck as Clark Gable."

There was the usual polite round of applause, which was enough to mask the brief look of unhappy shock Danny sent his way as he stood up and made his way towards the stage to stand beside the others. Howard was bouncing lightly on the balls of his feet, looking delighted in the face of all the attention. Danny looked rather less happy, at least to Rusty's eyes. He watched with delighted amusement, as they brought out large photographs of Clark Gable and started an indepth comparison, prodding a ruler through Danny's moustache and shaking their heads unhappily.

Danny's eyes promised revenge, and he reminded Danny with a look that this was _already _revenge. Plus, it did give him an excellent opportunity to talk to the president without looking suspicious, and shortly after pronouncing Danny had come in last place, with only three points out of fifty, the president stood at the front of the stage, grave-faced.

"Now, gentlemen, many of you will have heard about the killer bee threat," he announced. "I just want to urge you all to stay calm. There's no cause for concern, I have every confidence that the bees are nowhere round here, and we'll be told if the situation changes at all. In the meantime, please just enjoy yourselves."

There. Rusty hadn't heard a public safety announcement yet that didn't cause more fear than it calmed, and this one was no exception. They could be absolutely certain now that the bee-threat was uppermost in everyone's mind, and that meant that everything was falling into place.

* * *

They made their move after lunch, which was delicious, and ironically, featured honey-glazed duck as the entree. He stayed in the convention room as Danny headed out, sitting in the back next to Howard and a few others, while the competitions meandered on.

He glanced at his watch. Thirty seconds. He was ready.

The buzzing sound started softly and just the back few rows started looking around unhappily.

"What's that?" he demanded loudly, and others were already asking the same question, as the buzzing grew louder, angry and unholy.

"Bees!" Howard said, his voice shrill and afraid. "It's the killer bees! They're here!"

The panic spread through the room like wildfire and Rusty chose that moment to stand up and smash the breakglass point for the fire alarm.

"We have to get out of here!"

"Run!"

"Oh fuck, I saw one, I saw one!"

"Everyone please stay calm," the president bellowed. "Head towards the door at the front of the room in an orderly manner."

Of course, that led to something of a stampede. But Howard lingered behind, at the very back of the crush. "They're coming from that air duct," he said fearfully, moving stupidly closer.

In his head, Rusty swore. Yes, they were, but if Howard looked inside, he'd see Danny.

"Use this!" he said with commanding urgency, grabbing a fire extinguisher off the wall and shoving it into Howard's hands.

Nodding, wide-eyed, Howard turned the fire extinguisher full blast on the grate and sprayed until it was empty.

"Now _run!" _Rusty yelled, shoving Howard ahead of him and running after him, and it wasn't until they were out the door that he ducked out and down the corridor.

Danny was waiting for him at the bottom of the air duct, the vuvuzela still in his hand. He was soaked to the skin, covered in fire-extinguisher foam. For a long moment he just stood there, looking at Rusty in silence.

"You know, Marco was right," Rusty commented brightly after a second. "Through the airducts, it really does sound like a swarm of bees."

"Right." Danny nodded unhappily, wiping the foam off his face with the back of his hand. "You ready?"

He picked up the bag from beside Danny's feet and brought out the two black ski masks and the glass cutter. "Ready," he said cheerfully.

After that it was just a question of climbing through the airducts, up the rope he'd left there yesterday into the museum. Of course, the guards had already evacuated the building, and they had all the time they needed to cut through the glass around the statue case and lift it out.

Their eyes met over the top of it. "Guess this belongs in a museum," Danny said lightly.

Rusty grinned. "So does Clark Gable. So do killer bees."

* * *

They were back home by ten o'clock that night, and Danny headed straight for the shower, emerging fresh and clean shaven. He stopped and stared at Rusty. "You missed a spot."

Rusty glanced in the mirror and rubbed pensively at the small fluffy patch of beard just between his mouth and chin. "Think I'm gonna keep it," he said.

Danny pursed his lips. "You're gonna keep it? After the two days we just had?"

He grinned. "You can't blame a beard for a close shave."

Danny groaned audibly. "There are times," he said with feeling. "When I really don't know why I keep you around."

He grinned some more. "Because life would be so - "

" - oh, I think I could live with it," Danny said decidedly, and he managed to keep the severe look up for almost three seconds before he laughed. "You want - "

" - with ham, mushroom and anchovy," he agreed.

"You're just gonna pick all the anchovy off," Danny warned.

"But I like picking the anchovy off," he said with a shrug.

Danny smiled. "You know," he said. "There's a pizza festival going on in the upper East Side this weekend. Right opposite the Wells Fargo bank."

He smiled right back. There was always something new.


End file.
